


when you bought the building (when we were roommates)

by lovelyflowersinherhair



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Camp Riverdale Challenge, Tumblr: riverdale-events, and they were ROOMMATES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 19:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyflowersinherhair/pseuds/lovelyflowersinherhair
Summary: Adjusting to living together is harder than FP anticipated.





	when you bought the building (when we were roommates)

**Author's Note:**

> this is for day...3 I believe? of the camp riverdale challenge

“I’m sorry, Alice.” 

The drive home, back to Riverdale, back to the house on Elm Street, had been filled with a rather awkward silence, which, upon reflection, probably was less awkward than FP thought it was, when he thought through the events of the past several months. It was possible that Alice had every reason for the silent treatment that she was giving him. Probable, even. 

“I shouldn’t have said that Gladys was the mother of my children,” he continued. “Of course you’re the mother of my child. I just...I fucked up, okay? I fucked up. You asked me if I loved you, and instead of saying yes, I fucked it all up.” 

“How could you possibly love me?” Alice said after a moment. “My own daughter pulled an Eva Braun to avoid having to leave her cult, and my other daughter  _ hates _ me, and now that the investigation is  _ over _ our son will leave and never have anything to do with me, ever again.” 

“Al--”

“Everyone always leaves me,” she said. “Why should you be any different? Why should Charles?” 

“I’m sorry about Polly.” In truth? FP was  _ not _ sorry about Polly. The girl was entirely too far gone to have gotten out of the cult, and FP was fairly certain that Polly’s convincing Alice to join up with the farm in her most vulnerable moments had come before her encounter with Charles. “But Polly’s actions aren’t reflective on you. She made her choices.” 

“Choices that she made because I sent her away,” Alice whispered. “If I hadn’t sent her to the Sisters, if I had just forced her to get that abortion that her father wanted her to have...maybe she wouldn’t have thrown her entire life away because that  _ cult _ let her see that Blossom boy. Maybe I wouldn’t be forced to parent my grandchildren that I never wanted to have exist in the first place.” He heard her sniffle. “But I don’t have a choice now, do I? I’m stuck with the twins because my other option is to let them live in that horrorshow of a mansion with their senile greatgrandmother and their batshit aunt and her girlfriend.” 

“That could  _ still _ be an option--”   
  


Alice glared at him. “No, FP. It isn’t. No matter how much I want it to be. How would it look for you as the Sheriff if the person you share your home with let such insanities continue?” 

He sighed, and he shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t want to put them up for adoption?”   
  


“Knowing my luck Cheryl would somehow manage to adopt them,” she said, and she let out a sigh. “No, they are my burden and mine alone. I don’t expect you to take care of them.” 

* * *

“Gladys and I are getting a divorce,” FP announced. “I served her the papers this morning.” 

“If you want me to praise you for something that you should have done when she stole your daughter from you and moved to Toledo, you don’t know me very well at all,” Alice said after a moment, as she shifted her gaze from the twins that were strapped in their highchairs to him. “What do you want me to say? Congratulations?” 

“I thought maybe you’d want to try again--”

“Try  _ what _ again?” Alice demanded, her tone harsh, and he wondered if he had made an error in judgment. “I told you that I loved you, and you said that she was the mother of your children. Like the son that we had together didn’t mean anything to you. And that’s fine, FP, if you want to think like that--I lived with a man, in this house, for 25 years, who treated me like shit,” she said. “And I took that, because he was my husband. That was the choice that I made. I thought that you were different, you know? That maybe...what we had been doing had meant something to you. That you had changed.” 

“But you didn’t, did you? You picked her. And for some bullshit reason, like she ever gave a  _ fuck _ about either of those kids. Jughead she just  _ abandoned _ and Jellybean who she tried to mold into a little  _ convict _ because that’s what Gladys is, okay? She’s not like you. She was having your twelve year old work at a chop shop, and you just  _ left _ her there. The only reason Gladys came back at all was to deal drugs under your nose, it had  _ nothing at all _ to do with your marriage.”

“Al--”   
  


“I’m tired of being the woman on your arm when it’s convenient for you,” she hissed. “I just don’t understand what goes on inside of your head that makes you think that I will just fall into your arms with rapturous joy over the fact that you got the divorce that you should have gotten ten years ago. The two of you should have never gotten married! For someone who desired to never be like his father, you certainly walked a similar path.” 

“We had to get married,” he muttered. “I knocked her up. It was the right thing to do.”

“Right,” she said. “What about me? Would you have married me?”   
  


“What are you even talking about?” FP demanded. “When was marrying you  _ ever _ in the cards? You went away to juvy, and came back with Hal Cooper’s ring on your damn finger. You barely gave me the time of day--”   
  


“I married Hal, because I had to. I had to because otherwise his mother and father wouldn’t have paid for my stay at the Sisters. And I wasn’t in juvy. That was a lie they concocted because they were ashamed their son was dating a woman pregnant with a bastard child. My mother kicked me out and I had no choice.” She shook her head, and drew in a deep breath. “So, I am asking you. If you had known about the baby, would you have married me? Or would you have sent me away to rot in a convent for months and lied to everyone about my disappearance?” 

“Yeah, Al,” he said. “I would have. But, Al. I would have married you because I love you, not out of any sort of obligation, or whatever.” He slouched. “Maybe I should have handled things differently when Gladys came back. Maybe I should have done things differently when we were kids. But, Al. You can’t regret  _ everything _ that happened because we didn’t make it back in high school. I know that Hal was a prick, but what about your daught--what about Betty? What about your grandkids? Do you regret them?” 

“I should have stayed with you,” she said. “I should have...I don’t know, FP. I don’t know, okay? I have so many regrets that I don’t know where to begin, okay?” She drew in a breath. “I’m sorry that I brought it up, even. This isn’t about me. This is about you. I’m happy for you. That you and Gladys are getting a divorce. I think it’s for the best.” 

“Al--”

“I have to get the twins ready for daycare,” she said, her tone clipped. “Don’t you have to get to work?” 

“What?”   
  


“I thought you and Tom did that...Serpent Sergeant thing,” she said, and she shrugged her shoulders. “School’s starting in ten minutes. You’re going to be late.”

* * *

  
  


“I was wondering if I could talk to you about Alice and Hal,” FP said when Fred opened the door, dispensing with any and all pleasantries, having had a fun day poring over the records that the Sheriff’s department had kept over the past 25 years, and growing less amused by the minute. His patience was rather frayed. “Do you have a moment?”

“Why do you want to talk about that?” Fred said, his brows raised. “Hal’s dead, why the sudden interest?” 

“Maybe I want to understand what makes my son’s girlfriend, and her mother, who are sharing a house with me, tick?” FP kept his tone purposely light, hoping he was hiding his utter non-amusement semi-successfully. “Surely you have some insight on that, having lived next door to Hal your  _ entire _ life?” 

“We moved in when Archie was five--”

“Oh, cut the shit, Fred. You moved into your mother’s house after Oscar bit the big one and she had the sense to want to cut ties with this godforsaken town and get the hell out of dodge,” he said. “You act as if we haven’t known each other our entire lives. I know where you grew up.” 

“Don’t act like you don’t know--”   
  


“Don’t know what?” 

“Well, it’s not like the night he strangled her was the first time he hit her,” Fred said after a moment, and FP forced himself to remain calm, rationalizing that punching Fred into next week for his casual tone was probably not beneficial when the whole issue was that he had lived next door while Hal was treating Alice like dirt for years, and his mother before him, and that the two of them had done absolutely nothing to stop it. “But he always said that he was keeping her in line. And she said that it was nothing, when I asked.” 

“Of course she said that!” He clenched his hands into fists, but kept them at his side. “Fuck, Fred, what the literal fuck? Why would she tell you how she really felt when that prick was lurking over her shoulder, following her every move?” 

“If she wanted to leave him, she could have left--”

“Not every one is you, Fred,” FP said. “She couldn’t leave. She had kids that she had to think about, her entire livelihood was controlled and tied up with him. He did that on purpose so that she  _ couldn’t _ just up and leave, do you not understand that? The man was a serial killer, and he wasn’t very nice to be around before then. And then to find that you knew and you did nothing? Wow.”

“We agreed--”   
  


“Don’t you start with that bullshit with me. Your pact is all well and good when it suits you, but you feel free to ignore it when it doesn’t.” 

It was possible that he was bitter about the disaster that had been his attempt at owning a legitimate business. 

Mainly, though? He was pissed off about how flippantly Fred had treated what happened with Alice. 

Alice who was at home.

In a house that she had been abused in for over two decades.

And he was pretty sure that she was alone.

“Where are you going?” Fred whined. “I thought we’d watch the game.” 

“Screw the damn game. There are some things that are more important.”

* * *

  
  


“Where are the kids?” FP asked Alice lightly, as he sat down beside her, loosening up his tie as he did. “You leave them someplace?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve allowed their...aunt and her significant other to watch them.” 

“I thought you said that you thought Cheryl was crazier than a loon and that it would be a cold day in hell before she was allowed to watch them without ‘proper supervision’, which you thought would ideally include a detail cop of your choosing?” 

“She is crazier than a loon. But, I changed my mind. If she is their aunt, she is allowed to see them. Maybe if they spend more time with her they won’t call me that word again.” 

“What did they call you?” FP asked, as he surveyed the room, which was littered with balled up tissues and what looked like what had been a hideously ugly vase. He had hated it, but whatever. It had been Alice’s. So when she had left it it had stayed. It was now shattered in tiny little pieces. “Al?” 

“They called me Mama,” she said after a moment, during which she furiously knit, and he sort of feared for his life. “I am not their mother. I will never be their mother. Their mother was someone who was out of her mind and chose her fictitious delusions over her own children. No  _ matter _ how hard things got here, I  _ never _ afforded myself that.” FP said nothing as she inched closer to him. “I just...I don’t want to hear that word. They don’t have a mother. And it’s all my fault. If only I had let her date Jason--”   
  


“He was her cousin,” he said. “Alice, you aren’t to blame for what Polly did. You aren’t to blame for any of it. It’s not your fault that something in her, something in Hal, was screwed up. If it hadn’t been Jason, it would have been someone, something else.” He carefully placed his arm around her shoulders. “And if the kids, if they think that you’re their mother? Why not let them? Is it the worst thing in the world? We can even give them my last name, blame the weird names on me.” 

“What are you saying? You’d raise them with me?” 

He nodded. “Al,” he said. “I’d do anything for you. Even raise Polly’s twins.” 

“Anything?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Good,” she said, and she placed the knitting in the basket that laid at her feet, her eyes glinting. “When I was pawning the kids off on Toni and her ward, I couldn’t help noticing that there was quite a terrible smell coming from the house. Don’t you think that a good Sheriff would investigate?” 

He sighed. “Al, the old lady probably bit it.” 

“Not true,” she purred. “I spotted Nana Rose in the gardens. Entirely too alive.” 

FP tugged at his beard. “Why do I think agreeing to this will be something that I regret?” 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said. “You leave two teenagers and an invalid in a home together, some meat is bound to go rancid. I just feel that my--our--the twins, they shouldn’t be exposed to such things. They need a clean environment. For me?”

She batted her lashes. “In return, I will invite you to sleep in my room with me. It’s much more comfortable than Harold’s man cave.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I know. I want to. I think that’s what’s right. I’m sorry that I’ve been so hard to live with lately.” 

“We both fucked up.” he said. “It’s not all on you.” He quirked a grin at her. “But I’ll take you up on that.”


End file.
